Amar Singh's phone tapped illegally: Govt

New Delhi: The Central Government on Wednesday told the Supreme court that former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh's phone was tapping illegally and that no authorisation was given for the same by the Government of India.

A bench of justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly took strong exception of the illegal phone tapping and asked Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati to file an affidavit telling what action has been taken against Reliance Infocomm on government's show cause notice issued to the telecom company on December 31, 2005 in the matter. The matter has been adjourned till February 24.

The bench also pulled up Reliance Infocomm for filing a "vague" affidavit on the issue of tapping Singh's telephone. It asked the company to bring original records pertaining to the case, which had been given by Delhi Police for investigation.

During the hearing, the bench also expressed displeasure over the manner in which various parties filed the affidavit on Singh's petition, filed in 2006, alleging tapping of his telephone by the government for "political reasons".

"We found that the affidavits were not in consonance with the law," the bench said, adding it was a very serious matter but the officials were very casual in their approach.

The bench asked the Delhi government to place before it the status report on the probe into the case, detailing the progress in the investigation.

It directed Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium to ask Delhi Police to file its affidavit in accordance with the law and posted the matter for further hearing on February 9.

Singh's telephonic conversation with various people including Samajawadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, were allegedly tapped in 2005.

Singh had filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking judicial investigation into the incident of telephone tapping.

Four persons - Bhupinder Singh, Vijay, Kuldeep Singh and Anurag Singh - have been arrested and charged for alleged forgery, cheating and other offences and for illegal phone tapping of Singh. They have been charged under section 420 (cheating), 471 (forgery) and 120B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. They were also found to be prima-facie guilty of offences under the Indian Telegraph Act.

A case was registered by the Delhi Police special cell on December 30, 2005 after allegations that Singh's phone was tapped by some unscrupulous elements.

The accused also allegedly contacted the Samajwadi Party leader and some media houses in order to sell the tapped telephonic conversation records.